How to Create an Airbnb Video to Market Your Property

If you are looking for a creative way to market your Airbnb property, an Airbnb video can do wonders for your listing. As the old saying goes, a picture is the worth a thousand words. But, a Forrester study found that 1 minute of video is actually worth 1.8 million words.

In addition, another study found that 92 percent of mobile video viewers share videos with others. These studies demonstrate just how powerful video is as a marketing tool. Unfortunately, the video is also a strategy that many Airbnb hosts overlook in promoting their Airbnb listings. Who said that Airbnb management doesn’t need to be creative?

However, you can create an Airbnb video that is almost guaranteed to attract bookings. To help you get started, here is a brief guide on how to create an Airbnb video to market your property.

1. Follow These Video Content Tips

An Airbnb video is an extension of your Airbnb listing. As a result, the same basic rules apply to create a video that you would apply to photography for your listing. Make sure to:

• Tell a story. Through your video, you should show your ideal guests why your property is the perfect choice for their needs. If necessary, you can even shoot different versions of your video to appeal to different types of guests, such as tourists, families or couples.
• Do a complete walkthrough. Make sure that your video shows off your entire property so that there are no surprises. Highlight the amenities.
• Be honest. Your video is not the time to test out your cinematic skills. Be honest about what your property offers and make sure guests are aware of both the good and the bad.
• Use a professional videographer. Don’t take shortcuts by shooting the video with your smartphone. You need quality audio, video, and video editing.
• Avoid licensed or copyrighted content. Make sure that you don’t include logos, licensed music/songs, celebrity names or anything else that might infringe on intellectual property rights in your video.
• Keep it professional. Pretend that you’re a real estate agent or the owner of a bed and breakfast. You should also make sure to avoid offensive or otherwise harmful content in your video.
• Keep it under 2 minutes. Studies show that people have short attention spans when it comes to video. If your video must go over 2 minutes, try to keep it as short as possible.
• Stay focused on the property itself. Don’t go off-topic in order to try to paint your property in a better light.

2. Include the Call to Action

Connecting with your target audience also means that you need to include a simple call to action to encourage bookings. Make sure to end your video with a direct link to your listing on Airbnb. For example, you can post text that says “Go here to book:” and provide the link to your Airbnb listing.

To sweeten the deal, you can also mention a Special Offer that will be available to people that viewed your video. Airbnb Special Offers allow you to set a custom price for a guest who sends you a booking inquiry.

With quality content and a simple call to action, guests will feel like your video delivered value. In addition, a call to action will also make it easier to track who viewed your video before booking your Airbnb property.

3. Post Your Video on YouTube

Once your video is ready, now it’s time to send it out to the world. As of right now, Airbnb does not allow you to upload videos to your Airbnb listing. Therefore, you will have to rely on third-party websites in order to promote your Airbnb video.

YouTube is the largest and most active video site on the web. YouTube has over a billion users, accounting for nearly one-third of total internet users. That means that YouTube is clearly the best place to start when it comes to getting views for your Airbnb video.

When you post your Airbnb video on YouTube, make sure to write a description for your video that briefly describes the property, its location, and the amenities that it offers. You should also include relevant keywords, such as your city name, “cottage,” “entire home/apt,” “romantic,” “business travelers,” etc. Your target guests will likely use these keywords to search for Airbnb properties on YouTube.

Last, but not least, make sure that you also include a link to your listing on Airbnb in the description of the video. This way, interested parties can go directly from the video to making a booking at any time.

4. Post Your Airbnb Video on Other Video Sites

Although YouTube is king when it comes to video traffic, you shouldn’t ignore other video sites. Sites like Vimeo and Dailymotion also receive a significant amount of traffic because they also rank in the top 5 most popular video sites on the web.

Blog platforms, which allow you to embed videos, are another option for promoting your video.

5. Promote Your Airbnb Property Video on Social Media

After you post your video online, your work isn’t done. In fact, it is only just beginning. Now that your video is available to the general public, you’ll need to actively promote it in order to attract your target audience.

Think about it like this: You aren’t just creating a video for general promotion. You created a video so that you can get more bookings from a specific group of people. So you’ll need to figure out where your audience hangs out and promote your Airbnb video on those platforms.

For example, if your ideal guests for your Airbnb property are business travelers, you might get some good results from promoting your Airbnb video on LinkedIn and other business websites.

On the other hand, if your target audience is couples or leisure travelers, then using Facebook Ads or Instagram channels to promote your Airbnb video can help to attract a lot of attention to your video. In fact, social media also a good way to promote your Airbnb video to your extended network of friends and colleagues.

Final Thoughts

Creating an Airbnb video takes a lot of work in order to ensure that it connects with the right audience. As a result, you must customize your message so that it appeals to your target customer. Otherwise, potential guests may not find your video to be useful.

In addition, it will take some testing to figure out where to promote your Airbnb video. However, the main point is that any video absolutely needs to be promoted in order to be effective as a marketing tool for your Airbnb management.